


The Shopping Mall Survivors

by tjstar



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Blood and Violence, Corpses, Friendship/Love, Injury, M/M, Shopping Malls, Supernatural Elements, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-24 05:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12006123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjstar/pseuds/tjstar
Summary: ‘My neighbor has just killed a zombie,’dings in Tyler’s head.‘My neighbor has just killed a freaking zombie.’How to call the police if you’ve just witnessed the murder of a person who was already dead?





	The Shopping Mall Survivors

The Apocalypse begins when _they_ cut off the internet connection.

This is Tyler’s personal Hell actually, because he’s in the middle of getting some important job done — his Mom always says he’s got potential, he writes good things about bad mood, and he has to actually pull all of it together. And he’s about to email a bunch of his poetry to a local publishing office, but the internet isn’t working, the browser’s not responding no matter how many times Tyler tries to re-fresh the page.

But he’s got potential.

But his life craves to bury him alive.

“Sorry, Mom,” Tyler sighs, leaning on the back of his chair, his spine cracks and his ass is numb. This is the payment for his dream, but —

But the Apocalypse begins.

It starts with a rather audible rumbling in the backyard. Tyler is not a fan of some random creeps roaming his territory, so he’s obligated to go and check for it; as a fairly skinny guy with a good potential he grabs a baseball bat and continues his way towards the back door armed and ready to retreat.

The upper half of the back door is made of glass.

Tyler has always known it’ll be the death of him.

He throws a quick glance through the glass and it’s the dumbest way to die.

“What the—”

He doesn’t finish the sentence; his astonishment is increased by the dismal _whistling_ coming from the blurry outlines fluctuating a few feet away from his house. Tyler is glad he hasn’t turned the lights on.

The silhouette whistles again, it sways sideways, taking an uncertain step towards the back door, almost like a child who’s trying to make their tiny wobbly legs work. This one, though, is not a child — it’s a woman with the shaggy hair and in a long nightdress; the streetlamp pours a meager light all over her as she throws her head up. Tyler can swear she’s sniffing the air like a bloodhound.

And she whistles.

It’s something of a Morse-code, short whistles alternate with longer ones; she dodders along, slow-motioned, and Tyler wants to pull the floral curtain down not to see her. This baseball bat is the deadweight in his hand, an ugly outgrowth, but he still doesn’t drop it.

The whistle changes its tone, sounding lower, on the brink of an animal growl.

Tyler huddles into the wall, pretty sure his sticky back leaves the sweat-stains on the panel, and the woman can probably smell it, smell his fright; the tiniest hope that it’s just a stupid prank dies and decomposes in Tyler’s mind.

It decomposes. Just like this woman — Tyler doesn’t want to face her, doesn’t want to believe, but the streetlamp and the woman’s features tell horrible tales. Skin grey, skin bluish with the wire-like veins and with the chunk of a flesh hanging loosely from her bottom jaw.

Whistle-step, whistle-step.

She’s going for him.

 _‘What the fuck have I done wrong?’_ Tyler thinks. His inward dialogue is a failed attempt, his heart is a lump in his throat.

And now there’s a _zombie_ outside the door.

Tyler turns his head to the glass again as somebody else’s steps — louder, heavier — intercept the whistling; here’s a figure — bigger, stronger, they also have an outgrowth on their arm —

Tyler has never thought the uproar of the rifle being fired can be so loud.

He’s never known it can actually shake his house with these embarrassingly cardboard walls; his useless bat falls, and Tyler follows it, curling into himself with his hands pressed firmly to his ears and with his knees pulled to his chest.

The whistling stops.

Tyler isn’t sure if the Apocalypse can pass so quickly.

When the echo abates, Tyler’s on his knees, ready either to pray or beg for mercy. Out of sheer curiosity he casts a glance at the glass square again, but the thing he sees is definitely not for his eyes, not for his battered nerves. Here’s his neighbor — Mike or Michael — the only fact Tyler knows about him is that he’s a former member of the US Marine Corps. Tyler has always been secretly scared of him even though their paths have never crossed before.

Until today.

And Tyler cups his palm over his lips to try and hold his stomach on its place although it’s a struggle — and the marine is struggling, too, dragging a headless, mutilated body out of Tyler’s backyard. The streetlamp reveals these dark smudges tracing down the lawn, the woman’s rotten brain drips out of the crack, and her skull looks like a broken vase.

Tyler shoves his fist into his mouth, ready to punch his cry; he can’t watch anymore, chewing his skinned knuckles and crawling away from the door.

 _‘My neighbor has just killed a zombie,’_ dings in Tyler’s head. _‘My neighbor has just killed a freaking zombie.’_

How to call the police if you’ve just witnessed the murder of a person who was already dead?

Tyler’s afraid to even let out a breath, but he still needs to make it to the phone in the living room and make a call. But getting up on his feet is a fatal mistake: his panic-ridden brain sends wrong signals to his limbs and Tyler collapses, body thudding against the wooden floor.

He is certain he hears that already familiar whistling again before blacking out.

 

***

Such long blackouts aren’t healthy. Tyler knows it just like he knows that drooling all over the floor instead of his pillow is more than just odd. Tyler’s sprawled right beside the back door, the baseball bat is lying next to him, and his head keeps re-playing the whistling that’s probably going to get stuck there until he rolls into his own grave.

“Oh God,” Tyler groans out. God never hears him.

He can’t piece himself together when he gets up, and the sour-tasting oatmeal rises up from his stomach; Tyler moves like that woman from yesterday. But he has to check his backyard, to encounter the repercussions, the Apocalypse.

The glass part of the door says there’s no corpse.

The daylight says Tyler overslept.

Tyler wipes his damp chin and grudgingly unlocks the door, feeling like the first human exploring a foreign land.

“Okay,” he says. “It’s okay.”

There’s still no dead body on the lawn when he goes outside, here’s just a sleepy neighborhood, but Tyler’s stomach drops as he glances at Michael’s house in the end of the street. Tyler is sure his name’s Michael. _Michael The Killer_ for Tyler.

There’s no blood either, but the grass is trampled and blended with the dirt as if somebody did it with the purpose of trying to hide the bloodstains. Michael has probably buried the body in the sandlot, but Tyler doesn’t remember the direction the zombie was being hauled in; his head is still fuzzy due to a panic attack and a faint. Amazing. Tyler is ashamed of it.

But well, it seems like zombies haven’t started the Cannibal Carnival, which means that Tyler doesn’t have an excuse for skipping work today.

Tyler kicks the grass with his toe, getting a bit of red on his sneaker.

The whistling keeps taunting his ears as he runs back home.

 

***

Customers don’t pay attention on how _dirty_ these shopping malls can be on the worst days of their life. They seem shiny and lavish, but the multicolored mold and roaches find their home between the walls, in the cobweb-coated corners, in the bathrooms where the smell of chlorine mixes with the odor of the clogged sewer lines.

Tyler knows quite a lot about the dirtier sides of the buildings like this one — it’s just his job, it pays the bills and strangles his dream of being a writer. He only has his potential and his co-workers to attach the roof-mounted anchor; Tyler fixes the safety ropes and protectors, so he can get onto the platform and wash the large windows without fear of falling.

“Good luck, Joseph,” Tyler’s co-worker hollers when the platform is prepared.

Tyler nods before taking a deep breath.

He’s not scared of it, not anymore; when he was still working on a trial period his anxiety and bad breakfast once made him vomit onto the window, freshly cleaned by the guy who had been guarding him all the time. Tyler was told that it was a common thing among the newcomers — Tyler prefers to never think back of it.

Tyler habitually checks the harness and lanyards as he stands on the platform in front of the window where he sees his own reflection, which gets replaced with the illusion of a zombie-woman. It must’ve been just a dream, a figment of Tyler’s imagination — he wouldn’t like to see it twice. Tyler is vigilant of the faint gusts of wind creeping into his ears and tangling in his hair — he’s hanging in the air but the air is his main enemy. Tyler occasionally gets dizzy when he looks down; he occasionally wants to step into emptiness.

“I’m ready!”

He waves at his co-worker on the rooftop and opens the bag with cleaning tools; the façade of a multi-storey shopping mall is his workplace for today, windows littered with the nasty-colored lines of pigeon droppings and dust. Maybe, some boring desk job with a perspective of getting hemorrhoids by the age of forty would be much better, but after almost three years of scrubbing the windows and panels Tyler has almost lost his desire to move on.

“Fucking pigeons,” Tyler spits out. Their poops cause dangerous diseases, he’s heard. He’s pretty sure they hate him as much as he hates them; birds flying around and hitting the windows always piss him off, but he hasn’t seen any of them today.

He’d write a poem about how malevolent these birds truly are.

The height is a therapy Tyler doesn’t have to pay for; it helps Tyler get all the trash out of his head as he works, as the droplets of the cleaner spray on the glass and eat away the filth. Tyler’s hands are sweating inside of the yellow rubber gloves, and the wind grabs at the collar of his blue uniform coverall.

The wind is mindless, and Tyler’s moves are mechanic and measured no matter how tired he is.

Sometimes, Tyler watches the people on the opposite side of the glass; it’s like observing the strangers’ life from inside the mirror. There are no customers in the section at the moment, the only person there is a janitor in a red uniform — he’s showing off his killer dance moves with the earbuds in his ears. He catches the rhythm of a bulky cleaning machine that devours the dirt on the floor. This guy is clearly enjoying his job.

“Freak,” Tyler huffs.

The ‘freak’ doesn’t hear him, scratching his shaved temple and waltzing away from the window while Tyler polishes it intently, smearing the mess down the glass and wiping it with a cloth in his hand. The last night’s events flash like the slides in his head; who knows, maybe the police has already found and arrested Michael, and the living area can sleep safe and sound.

Maybe, it was just Tyler’s mind, not a zombie.

But when Tyler’s thoughts take the right turn, the platform lurches.

“Hey?!” he’s unable to curb his wrath. The platform lurches again, Tyler staggers sideways, suddenly lightheaded due to the force of jerking. “What the fuck?”

The whistle is a melody, though the whistler is probably deaf. A man on the rooftop lets out a blood-curdling scream; the rope-grabbing tool loosens, and Tyler slides down. He rips his gloves off and grasps onto the metal bar right next to him, sticking to it with his shaking body.

“Chris?” he calls for his co-worker.

The whistle is a response, the sound of the fight and the growling is another answer; the platform turns to the most unsafe swings, wobbling and rocking back and forth, making Tyler lose the suction cup and the bag with the tools. It plummets, and Tyler blankly follows it with his gaze.

“What the Hell is going on, Chris?!”

More whistling, more tricking with the rope, the rival from the rooftop definitely wants Tyler dead. He accidentally looks down, and the picture below nearly makes him swoon — here’s the flock of people dashing across the street, being chased by the _creatures_ , tottering with a limp and a hunch, and Tyler’s mind adds the most suitable audio track to it — the whistling.

And that’s when the platform begins to act like a broken elevator, banging into the window and shattering the crystal-clear surface. At first, Tyler thinks he falls on the street’s side; he braces himself for the sickening smack against the asphalt and even begins to pray in his head, but his luck has other plans for him.

The inside of the shopping mall greets Tyler with the sound of the glass scattering all over the tiling; the floor greets him with the fresh bruises on his back and his side. Tyler is either concussed due to whacking his head against the floor or just confused by bumping into _somebody_ who is softer than Tyler thought; they’re wearing a red coverall, and they have a mohawk-styled hair, and —

“What the actual fuck, man?”

The janitor hasn’t left the building so Tyler has just swept him off his feet, the cleaning machine is lying in the puddle of cleaning products, and the floor is so slippery Tyler is unable to get up. The janitor wants to get his earbuds back, reaching for them, but they’re already soaked, dripping with water.

“There were… zombies,” Tyler gibbers out, eyeing the broken window and the glass shards sprinkled everywhere. His cheek is definitely scraped.

“You hit your head,” says the janitor.

That’s not something Tyler can disagree with.

“Zombie inv… invasion,” Tyler tries again, attempting to stand up, but this lovely floor doesn’t let him go easily. “They killed Chris!” he screeches, kicking his legs.

“Sure,” the janitor huffs.

And he gets up successfully, he even manages to pull up the cleaning machine while it keeps humming like a giant bug flipped over. Tyler doesn’t want to be that bug. His coverall is wet on the knees because he’s landed into a pool of the frothy cleaner — it’s just disgusting, the unwashed windows are disgusting, and this janitor is disgusting as well. He thinks Tyler is insane. But Tyler isn’t, and it’s not until the sound of the alarm begins to ring throughout the building; Tyler is so tired of this crescendo he thinks his poor head is going to burst.

“What the heck is going on?” the janitor tugs at his hair, forgetting about the machine that keeps burnishing the same spot so diligently it’s gonna dig a hole there.

The voice from the dynamics says that everyone must keep calm and leave the shopping mall; Tyler is sure he’s going to get sandwiched between the bodies hustling in the neighboring hall.

“Dude, get up,” he feels an arm on the back of his coverall; it steadies Tyler upright as if he is just a puppet.

Meanwhile, the evacuation begins.

Tyler doesn’t even want to watch the evening news to know how many people have been killed during this terribly performed act of salvation. So much pointless cramming, people and _not_ people scream, and gurgle, and whistle, and Tyler is bemused enough to think that throwing himself out of the broken window right now is the only way out.

_Please, leave the building._

And so Tyler does, he jostles the janitor off his way and sprints to the sharp-edged hole in the wall as his instincts keep yelling at him — _die, die, die_. And somebody’s already dead, lying in the aisle next to the plush toy section, a huge Teddy-bear is spritzed with blood, and Tyler can solve all of his problems with one jump.

“What the Hell are you doing? Are you fucking nuts?”

Tyler is sick of him already; he loses his temper, tackled to the floor by this pesky janitor who is stupidly calm during a literal mass murder. Tyler whimpers though he doesn’t mean to, but the janitor’s knee is pressed right into his ribs, and then he’s being snatched by the sleeve again. Tyler hates being manipulated.

“Are you gonna jump?” the janitor flinches, shouting over the chomping noises.

They’re in the household chemicals section, and if the glass breaks, they’re gonna be exposed to the monsters. The robotic voice from the dynamics repeats the same words over and over again: _find your family members and leave the building_.

“Come on,” the janitor hisses, throwing a bottle of the hairspray at the crowd. “I’ll get us out of this Hell.”

It sounds narcissistic but he probably knows every secret corner of this building, he’s mopped every single floor here, and Tyler hesitates as more whistling fills the room.

“I’ll knock you out if you’re not gonna go with me,” the janitor informs him.

“Don’t…” Tyler starts. The glass crushes down, welcomed by the gravity and stained with blood.

“Shit, run!” a hard punch into Tyler’s shoulder, and he hightails down the less crowded hall that leads to the opposite wing of the shopping mall. Tyler slips and slides down the tiles, followed by the crazy janitor who only has a mop taken from the section as his only weapon; the mop breaks as he flies into the railings and nearly falls, because these floors are worse than the obstacle course.

Tyler hates this building.

People block the exit like one big cork, yelping and stomping on each other’s feet; there’s a plethora of hysterical sounds, and Tyler can’t get rid of the invisible brick on his chest.

“There’s the evacuation,” Tyler utters meekly.

They’re doomed.

“We’re having our own evacuation,” the janitor retorts. “Come here,” he points at the metal door at the end of the hall; Tyler makes few more steps and waits until the janitor finds the right key. “You’re a suicidal idiot,” he scolds him softly. “What’s your name, idiot?”

“Tyler,” Tyler says. “I just hate my life.”

“I’m Josh,” the janitor says. Nothing else.

He’s not the one to talk, Tyler admits, which is good —

Not so good as Josh shoves him into the dark room and locks the door; Tyler swallows as the whistling gets closer and something hits the wall. Tyler hates everything and everyone in his life, because his Mom is wrong — she says Tyler is talented, and his eyelashes are beautiful, but Tyler is going to die now, and no one gives a shit. His _talent_ and his eyelashes won’t save him.

“They smelled us,” Tyler assumes.

“I think you’re right,” Josh agrees.

“But there are… _other_ people,” Tyler tries, but another punch on the door makes him fall silent. The thing that tries to get into the room is definitely not a human; it keeps making growling noises. “Are we going to sit here all day?”

Tyler is taken aback, and they don’t even have any weapons — here’s just a bench in the corner and a rusty locker that looks like it’s been stolen from the school corridor.

Josh presses his ear to the metal door.

“We’ll get out,” he says. “We just need them to stop roaming this wing,” he puts the keys into his pocket. “Would you rather be trampled between the corpses in the staircase?”

Tyler shakes his head.

Tyler’s mind and his body refuse to get the fact that he’s literally thrown into the whirlwind of a Zombie Apocalypse, locked in the locker room with a janitor who seems to be a terrible strategist.

“Listen, man, I know the rules,” Josh begins to speak while Tyler inspects the cracks on the floor. Here’s a piece of gum sticking to the sole of his sneaker, it’s irritating. “If they get the people out, they’ll block the doors automatically. But now imagine how many of them got hurt during the evacuation, got bitten by zombies, is it even real?” he rubs the back of his neck. “But can you just stop panicking? I’ll get you out, believe me; the back door will still probably be open, and we’ll check it really soon, okay?”

Tyler’s right eye twitches as his brain tries to figure the origin of these monsters. But Josh is so _alive_. And confident. And spending some time with somebody this confident never hurts.

“Okay,” Tyler says.

Out of the long shifts he’s ever had, this one is gonna be the longest.

 

*** 

Tyler wants to shred his brain to pieces and throw them into a trash can for thinking that sitting here won’t hurt him. They’ve gotten stuck here for what feels like eternity; they’re not saying a single word, and Tyler quivers each time he hears any faint noise from outside — there’s an infestation, this building will never be clean anymore. They used the bench to barricade the door and put the locker over it, but it doesn’t give them protection.

“How do we know when it’s safe to go out?” Tyler watches the spider dangling from the ceiling. It’s like a dungeon.

And the floor is cold.

And Tyler’s bladder is smaller than his ego.

Tyler wills himself to stop paying attention on his physical needs.

“Did you see what was happening there?” Josh interrupts the train of Tyler’s thought. Tyler nods. “Do you really think it was a smart decision to run in that direction along with the zombies and poor customers?”

Tyler shrugs.

He’s seen the WC sign on their way here.

“It’s the dead end,” he grumbles.

“It’s our temporary shelter,” Josh taps his finger on the barricade. “I bet our lovely government is about to shit their pants and start throwing bombs to kill the zombies.”

Tyler ponders if it’s even possible to kill a zombie with a bomb. Probably, yes.

“Aim for the head,” Tyler replies automatically.

“Indeed.”

Tyler’s nervousness kicks in again when Josh goes back to the locker; he thinks Josh is going to unlock the door, and maybe it’s good, because Tyler will finally be able to go and use the bathroom.

But Josh doesn’t open the door.

He just takes an empty plastic bottle instead.

And he turns away from Tyler.

“What are you doing?! Stop it,” Tyler almost begs; Tyler can only see Josh’s back, but it doesn’t save him from knowing what Josh is doing.

“Envious?” Josh chuckles.

Tyler sticks his knees together and tucks his hand between his thighs.

“No.”

He hasn’t expected that controlling his bodily functions could be so difficult. But here’s the security camera in the top right hand corner, and Tyler feels like he’s being watched — it’s his subconsciousness mostly; Tyler doesn’t know if it’s even working. And there’s a zombie invasion outside, and he’s sitting on the cold cement floor while the other dude is peeing in a bottle. That’s probably a new kind of a curse.

“You can use it too,” Josh says as he finishes and twists the small blue cap to keep the liquid inside.

“I decline,” Tyler huffs.

“But we’re gonna need to drink something if we won’t be able to get out—”

“Shut up.”  

Josh listens to the sounds from behind the door again.

“I don’t hear anything,” he states. “Do you hear them?”

Tyler can’t hear anything except his own blood rushing in his ears, because his abdomen begins to ache, and Tyler hates that can of RedBull he’s had instead of a proper breakfast. He wants to turn back time and never drink any coffee or tea or whatever, because dying of dehydration is less degrading than wetting your pants in front of a stranger.

“Help me move it?” Josh chews his lip, prodding a metal side of the locker.

Tyler wants to bang his head against the wall until he passes out.

“Give me the bottle,” he hisses out. “Please.”

There’s no need to ask for it twice; the second he says it, he feels a warm plastic handed over to him because Josh understands.

“Sure, man,” he says softly. Tyler hates him for it.

He manages to stand up while his shaking fingers fumble with the double ended zipper on his coverall before unscrewing the cap.

“Don’t look at me,” Tyler croaks out. “I can’t… do it when you’re looking at me.”

He wishes Josh could disappear right now not to see his embarrassment. Tyler is pretty sure his face is the same color as Josh’s coverall.

“Okay, okay,” Tyler can hear him step away. “Take your time, I don’t care actually.”

Tyler is that kind of guy who needs to be alone during his most private moments, but the fact of zombies’ presence hurries him up; he can say he feels something resembling happiness as he takes a leak. Tyler doesn’t care about how gross it is and about how _unhealthy_ the color of his urine is; when this part of the ordeal is over, he’s almost ready to kick some putrefying ass.

“Well,” Tyler breathes out, putting the bottle in the corner. “Now let’s move the locker.”

He just wants to ride his courage not to let it slip away from him.

Josh rewards him with a crooked grin.

 

***

The bench screeches against the floor as they lug is away; the door is as heavy as a rock as they open it — the hallway is dark, with the small round lamp on top of the stairs.

“What if they hear us?” Tyler whispers. He doesn’t mean to hide behind Josh’s back all the time, but that’s what he’s doing; Tyler wonders if his attitude can make Josh actually punch him.

“Don’t think of it now,” Josh says, clenching his teeth. 

Josh beckons to him, and Tyler follows, stepping carefully as if the floor is an ice crust that’s about to break under his weight. The distance is not that long — just ten feet in obscurity. The staircase is empty, but Tyler thinks he sees something on the step below.

“It’s just your imagination,” Josh can probably read Tyler’s minds. “Let’s go downstairs, I’ll guide you out,” he thumps Tyler’s shoulder, and Tyler grips at the railings.

They don’t have a flashlight to enter the darkness.

Tyler lets his eyes adjust to the lack of light as they simply go down, in silent prayers for it to be over quickly. Tyler isn’t sure if Josh knows any prayers though.

“Are you going to go outside with me?”

Josh stops dead in his tracks.

“No.”

“Why?”

“This building is my home, buddy,” Josh pushes Tyler again, making him speed up. “I need to check if there are any people left here, to be honest. I’m not really brave though, but there are cameras everywhere, so I think I’m gonna make my way to the security’s room and check the floors,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you can go, it’s fine. Let’s think your shift is over.”

Tyler hears him chuckle.

Tyler hears the monotonous whistling coming from the blackness.

From the back door.

Tyler doesn’t want to go outside anymore. He doesn’t even have the time to scoot — here’s a hand grabbing at his shoe in the crack between the steps; it jerks him downwards, gnarled fingers stick in his pant leg. Tyler lashes out, he slides down, the whistle is his Dead March; more hands are reaching for him, for his precious flesh though he’s sure he’s not a delicious dessert.

But the whistlers think Tyler is a walking ice-cream cone.

“Josh! Help!”

“I’m trying!”

They’re not licking him yet, but their dead fingers drag his sock down his ankle and twist the joint; Tyler uses his other leg like a hammer, he’s strong enough to make their fingers crack, and he’s angry enough not to stop wriggling. Josh tugs at Tyler’s arms while his aching body is stretched above the stairs, his muscles weep in pain; it takes a dozen of powerful jerks for Josh to finally set Tyler free and haul him up. Tyler’s knees hit the stairs and his ankle is on fire, but he jumps up on his feet and sprints up; Josh hooks the back of his uniform and nearly chokes him.

They gallop all the way upstairs, and Josh slams the door shut when the whistling turns to hissing, and their sharp claws scratch the metal surface, but they’re locked there like the snakes in the box.

“You’re… fast,” Tyler gasps as the pain from his ankle shoots up his shin.

“Yes, I am,” Josh gives him an eloquent glance. “How’s your leg?”

It swells and aches.

“We’ll check it later,” Tyler says, trying to seem careless.

They’re getting back to the same level they’ve been earlier; this time, Josh doesn’t lead him to the locker room, changing the route and guiding Tyler to the rest area in between the sections. White leather couches are stained red, but Tyler doesn’t want to dwell on details.

“Sit down,” Josh orders, a bit roughly, and Tyler knows the reason. This day might turn to a complete shit — Tyler might get infected as well. “Show me your ankle.”

It’s strange that Josh has already figured out Tyler’s injury.

Tyler finds a clean couch and flops down onto it; he bends and rolls up his pant leg, revealing five thick streaks of bruises right above his tattered sock. The skin isn’t scratched, there’s no blood, so Tyler is about to actually thank God.

“Do you think they send it like a virus?” Tyler asks.

Josh examines his ankle for a little too long.

“Can you walk?” he frowns. “Or run?”

“Yeah. It’s not dislocated,” Tyler assures. “So, how do you think—”

He never finishes because Josh never listens.

“We need weapons,” Josh says, running his fingers through his beard. “And we’re gonna have a little adventure to get them,” he wipes his palms on his pockets. “I suppose you’re staying _with me_?”

Josh mocks him, Tyler knows.

“I can walk,” Tyler informs him belatedly.  

“It’s good,” Josh nods.

This shopping mall is a place where Tyler’s hopes die. The nagging pain in his leg is a reminder that Josh has already saved his life. Tyler feels queasy, he needs to take a breather, but it seems that Josh isn’t going to babysit him — he whips around and shuffles down the aisle.

Tyler hates this shitty tiling, he slips every so often as he follows Josh.

“Where are we going?”

“To get weapons.”

“Is it a long way?”

“Depends.”

Josh is not in the mood, but Tyler wants to talk.

“You didn’t let me die,” he says, he’s grateful.

“You broke my earbuds,” Josh sounds like a frustrated kid.

Tyler wants to say that they’re roaming a mall and Josh can actually get a new pair, but eventually bites his tongue. More signs of a fight are exposed — broken furniture and glass piled on the floor, cracked tiles and lost shoes next to the perfume stand. No bodies yet, but that’s just a matter of time.

The situation just gets more and more surreal within every second. Tyler has no clue what they’re gonna do now, when the shopping mall is technically captured by the monsters; there are no any of them in this section, there’s no plangent whistling, but Tyler’s memory has recorded it. They’re passing by the home appliances store; these flat LED TV-sets on the holders shimmer and flash, the picture is too contrast, too bright, and the sound isn’t loud enough.

Watching the news on at least twenty screens is weird.

Especially, if it’s the news about the Apocalypse.

Especially, when it’s about zombies.

“…the Department of Homeland Security is taking the situation under its control,” the TV guy says. The smile splits his face, and his golden jacket doesn’t look like a suitable thing to wear while he’s reporting stuff like this. “The riots raging all over the city are gonna be stopped within the next couple hours, please, contact the hotline if you’ve lost your relatives or if you need any other help; you can see the number on your scr… fuck!”

The inhuman wail interrupts the reportage, and it takes a moment for Tyler to realize that it’s the TV guy who’s screaming in agony.

Tyler jumps away from the TV as if it might spit acid in his eye.

Because this stylish TV guy has obviously been lying all the time; three whistlers thwart his promises by attacking him, by eating him, by ripping his golden jacket, and the blood sprouts out of his ripped arteries.

“Oh God,” Josh says, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrendous massacre.

Blood and glitter drip down the inner side of all the screens; they’re surrounded by the cycled torture, by these slurping noises. Tyler has never seen anyone being murdered like that or just being murdered, so he stands here, aghast and dumbstruck. The TV guy has already stopped screaming, but the broadcast is still on air; Tyler thinks that the camera man is probably dead as well. Maybe, they’ll get their second life as these mindless, brain-eating monsters, or maybe human liver tastes better for them, or their juicy hearts. Tyler isn’t sure which body parts they prefer.

“We’re in deep shit, guys.”

“Yeah,” Tyler agrees wholeheartedly, too shocked to be aware that he’s never heard this voice before. “What?”

He turns around, just to see the speaker who’s standing at the end of the aisle with the TV remote control in his hand. It’s not a whistler, not a janitor, it’s a slightly pudgy guy dressed in a black hoodie and black pants, and probably covered with his own grief.

He sighs and turns the TV off, then another one, and another, and Josh suddenly shakes off his trance —

“Mark?!”

The guy squints his eyes in disbelief.

“Josh?!” his grief fades so quickly it shocks Tyler even more. “Josh, buddy, I can’t believe my eyes, man!” he goes toward them. “I couldn’t see you when the cameras stopped working, well, when you left the locker room and ran there, and something happened. I don’t know, and, as I said, the cameras were broken, but then I heard the voices and decided to check,” he says cheerfully. “Let me hug you, bro,” he nearly knocks Josh off his feet as he leaps on him. “I thought there was no point in watching you anymore. But let’s think up what else I can do?” he’s gushing with enthusiasm.

And Josh beams, patting Mark’s back and lifting him off the ground as if meeting him is the best thing happened to him today.

“Mark is working here — IT service,” Josh explains, still holding him. “And we’re living together.”

Tyler hums and looks at the black screen as if it means nothing.

“You’re making a great team,” Tyler drawls, trying his best to be polite. They need some new _alive_ people in their improvised troop to survive, but he’s already used to Josh, and learning Mark’s quirks is not something he’s prepared for.

“You’re on our team too,” Mark encourages him. “We’re gonna need a bait for zombies anyway.”

Tyler cracks his knuckles.

“Cool,” he says, still polite. “Fuck you.”

“I’m just kidding, man,” Mark raises his hand in defeat.

“Uh-huh.”

Tyler is intended to go out of the section, but Mark shouts at his back —

“What’s your name, dude?”

Tyler doesn’t respond.

“It’s Tyler,” he hears Josh reply. “He’s a nice guy.”

The way Josh calls him _nice_ makes Tyler want to start throwing punches, but he suppresses the surge of fury, because of course — Josh and Mark won’t let him go on his own. Tyler feels dumb.

“Why are you so arrogant?” Mark asks as if Tyler knows the answer. “It’s our common problem, _Tyler_.”

Tyler is about to say that Mark’s only problem is his own existence, but he doesn’t want to insult Josh’s homeboy. Well, at least, he doesn’t want Josh to know.

“I’m not arrogant,” he folds his arms on his chest.

“Sure. The internet’s not working,” Mark complains. “And I think it’s the government; like, they’re cutting us off of the information not to let the rumors spread around. But how can you spread the rumors when there are actual zombies?”

Tyler hates to admit that here’s some logic in Mark’s _all-of-it-is-just-a-conspiracy_ message. Their government can do that. And Josh has apparently found a new source of energy.    

“Let’s go to check the cameras?” Josh offers.

Mark rubs his palms.

“It’s not far from here,” he nods, turning to the left so Tyler is right beside him. Tyler doesn’t dodge when Mark nudges his side. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Josh chortles.

Tyler thinks that he’s probably able to bear Mark’s presence.

 

***

The walls of the office are decorated with the posters — Red Hot Chili Peppers and Queen mostly, and Tyler can’t just be a dickhead when Freddy Mercury looks at him _like that_. Mark shows them the building virtually — it’s the map with some of the sections marked with the red _X_ signs. 

“Well,” Mark taps his fingers on the keyboard. “I can’t see you here,” he points at the back door on the map. “Here,” he drags the line to the north wing. “And here,” he clicks his tongue as he points at the underground parking lot. “I think they’re getting smarter,” he peers into the monitor.

The shopping mall seems to be empty: sleeping black and white sections, stained floors and broken glass walls.

“No sound?” Tyler asks.

“Unfortunately, no,” Mark shakes his head.

“They’re whistling,” Josh adds.

“I heard them once. What a crazy mutation,” Mark rolls back and forth in his wheely chair. “They were behind the door, but I think they didn’t notice me.”

Tyler bites his thumb.

“They’re ruining the cameras.”

He mentally counts all the sections they’ve ever entered — even the home appliances section — the cameras are blind there, chasing their way; so if they’ll be retreating, Mark won’t be able to see them, won’t be able to warn. It’s the sign for them to only move forward, even though it’s clear that the whistlers are going to break the cameras there too. Tyler then thinks that they’re too high, almost on the ceiling, so maybe their putrescent brains will not figure out how to get there.

“Is there any chance for us to get proper weapons?” Josh talks to himself, eyeing the cameras closely. “And food. And water,” he enlists.

“Have you seen any other people here?” Tyler asks at the same time.

Mark clicks on the camera that shows the food aisle; it’s quiet for a second, but then there’s a figure staggering down the line of fridges.

“People?”

“What the heck—”

They observe the man dressed in jeans and a t-shirt walking and throwing the packs off the shelves; milk and yogurt merge into the mush on the floor, but the zombie is obviously having fun with that. But also, there’s another one, following its _friend_ step by step and mirroring its movements — ruining milk and bread sticks and dumping other snacks on the floor.

They’re spilling the water, too, just opening the bottles and shaking them; when the first zombie titters to the fridge with the energy drinks, Tyler is about to storm out of the room and stop it.

“No food,” Josh glances at the screen dolefully. “Okay.”

“How can you even think about food?” Tyler grumbles. Just the sight of the whistlers makes him want to puke his guts out.

“Who knows for how long we’re going to stay here. We need food,” Josh shrugs. “I’m just trying to think rationally.”

In Tyler’s opinion, Josh fails.

“And now we’re going to fight zombies for a can of soup or RedBull, that’s what I’ve been dreaming about all my fucking life,” Tyler bristles, Tyler clutches his head. “I should’ve thrown myself out of the window.”

Mark’s stare is still scorching his shoulder blades.

“He’s cleaning the windows,” Josh explains. “And having way too many nervous breakdowns, but it’s okay.”

Josh is so kind it’s sickening.

“We’ll never find proper weapons, get it,” Tyler rolls his eyes.

“Really?” Josh smirks. “We’re in a shopping mall, dude. Kitchen knives, cleavers, hatchets and other stuff; if we’ll make it to the fishing supplies store we might even get the harpoons and use them like crossbows, well, like shitty ones, but anyway. It’s possible to decapitate a zombie using the blade of the shovel…” he bends his fingers, counting, and his ardor doesn’t match his sanity.

“Stop,” Tyler sweats nervously. His imagination is a tsunami.

“There are those samurai swords in a souvenir shop,” Mark pipes up. “I hope they’re sharp enough.”

Tyler looks at the screen, and there are zombies swarming around the body on the floor in the hallway beside the comics shop.

“Gosh,” he winces.

“Fishing supplies store is the closest section we can get into,” Josh concludes. “We can start with it, and then switch the weapons if we see something better,” he’s now talking directly to Tyler.

Josh discusses the problem so unflappably as if he’s been ready for the Zombie Apocalypse to happen.

“It’s clean of the whistlers,” Mark says. “You have some time, I think. I’m gonna watch you, and I can even try to use the microphone or the ticker tape above each section to give you a sign,” he offers, and Tyler suspects that he simply doesn’t want to leave this room.

But well, he can’t blame him.

“Good idea,” Josh agrees.

The whistlers are lurking in the farthest section, Tyler can tell it by lonely swaying silhouettes on the stairs. But there’s nothing like that on their possible path yet.

They need a dispatcher.

“Yes,” Tyler finally says. “Let’s go and fish something out.”

“Terrible pun, buddy,” Josh pats his shoulder.

Tyler hates being touched like that but he doesn’t let Josh know.

“Good luck,” Mark only whispers in awe as they leave the office.

 

***

A billow of problems swallows them up when it’s only the beginning of their journey; Tyler tries his best not to strain his injured leg because the pain in his ankle is getting madder, the skin is getting hotter, and the phantom splinter is sinking deeper in the tissues.

Tyler bends and massages the swell to alleviate the pain. It never works.

“We can go get bandages,” Josh offers, disquieted.

“I’m fine,” Tyler cuts him off.

Josh mutters something under his breath — Tyler doesn’t listen.

The zombies are starting to build decent barricades all over the place, using metal carcasses, panels and furniture. Their intentions are predictable, but it doesn’t save the day; here’s a human’s arm lying under the table and Tyler gags into his palm. Yellowish-white edge of the bone looks bitten and sharp; the tatters of the flesh are still bleeding lazily, the liquid collects into a sick print on the floor. It gets into the space between the tiles, it soaks through, just another detail of the ominous mosaic.

Tyler fights another onslaught of nausea.  

“Don’t look,” Josh steps over the bloody rills, compelling Tyler to move forward.

And Tyler doesn’t look.

Josh’s voice is so velvet as if he doesn’t know how to yell at somebody.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler says.

“Don’t be.”

The staircase is barricaded as well, a mess of broken office chairs and cash registers stolen from the shopping sections, but they scramble upstairs with just bare hands and their own non-existent bravery.

When the fishing supplies store is just a few feet away, Tyler feels like there’s a little ray of light shining through the clouds, but the whistling sneaks into his head again. Right beside him, Josh is a motionless mannequin, Josh’s eyes are wide open as he keeps his glance locked on _something_ behind Tyler’s back. Tyler is about to lose his composure.

“Don’t make sudden moves,” Josh warns.

The surmise hits Tyler all of the sudden.

“How many of them?”

“Four.”

Tyler is about to die four times.

“Are they moving?”

“Yes.”

Of course, they are.

Their rotten feet shuffle against the floor, slowly, steadily.

Tyler has never felt them this close.

His neck is a steel rod; the sparkles of adrenaline and terror hit the hole in his head as Josh tugs at his sleeve hastily. The glass wall behind Tyler’s back explodes with the lacy cracks; the whistlers get distracted by their own clumsiness.

“Alarm!”

Black dynamics transmit the hollow words — it’s Mark shouting into the microphone in his office, the noises are overlapping each other.

Josh’s order to stay still is just nonsense.

“Move, guys, move!”

Josh coaxes Tyler to run now.

Tyler is bound to make a mistake and look back — here’s the group of zombies chasing them restlessly; they’re not that fast, but Tyler slips, his ankle is wrapped in thristle thorns, and Josh tows him forward, to the fishing supplies section. Josh knows this building, of course, he knows the assortment of their possible weapons as they break into the store. Next moment, here’s the speargun in Josh’s hands; he pulls the trigger and shoots, the dart flies directly into the whistler’s bowed head, its brownish-grey brain splatters out as the shank strikes through its frontal bone.

“What a big fish,” Josh puffs out a breath.

It was a woman when it was alive, its dress barely covers its chest, mottled with the cadaveric spots and littered with clogged up veins. Tyler is about to faint, but his instincts keep him awake so he grabs a hatchet and hurls it at the nearest whistler — it swishes across it’s bare shoulder, chopping off a solid chunk of its arm. The whistler howls, and Josh takes the speargun again, backing Tyler to the exit where they’re met by another bevy of zombies. Their outstretched arms are like antennas, their bluish lips keep giving off these whistling signals to beckon the others.

It’s just a hive of monsters.

“Josh! Down!” Mark yells through the dynamic above Tyler’s head.

Josh squats down as another tomahawk gets straight into zombie’s skull, removing its scalp and sending it to slouch on the floor like a dirty cloth. Tyler’s insides lurch painfully.

“Nice throw, Ty!” Mark cheers. As if it’s just a game, and they’re fighting their pixel enemies. Well, these _pixels_ are just way too real.

Tyler wipes the sweat, a dirty line on his sleeve, and takes another hatchet from the box.

The battle is not over, one of the whistlers ends up with a three-pronged fishhook in its eye; Josh tugs at the fishing rod, but it’s stuck so he just throws it at the zombie. The nylon wire tangles over its legs, it keels over and hits the floor. It lets Tyler and Josh take the opportunity and get out of the section, only armed with a hatchet for the ice-fishing and pocket knives Josh has grabbed from the counter.

“The food aisle is clear!” Mark shouts through the speakers. “Go get there, then upstairs and into the storage room, all clear, go, fuckers, go!”

The air rumbles in Tyler’s ears, drowning out all the noises, but Josh’s heavy breathing hits the back of Tyler’s neck as they flee down the cluttered up hallway, jump over the armchairs and tables that threaten to break their legs. Tyler wordlessly scolds himself for refusing to use the bandages as the ache spikes through the joint.

“Stop there!” Josh exhales.

Tyler obeys.

The food aisle is all trashed after the first invasion, but the camera in the top left hand corner keeps blinking with the tiny green lamp.

Mark can see them.

Zombies can smell them.

That’s what they do, luring them into the snare, backing them to the wall; Tyler’s knife misses its head, just leaving a wide gash on its cheek, and he cusses loudly. A zombified guy flashes the smile Tyler has created on its face, teeth peeking through the incision and dead blood clotting at the edges of the wound. Just smashing its head would be less obnoxious; it’s still living, it’s staring at Tyler with its albugo- stricken eyes. For a second, Tyler’s vision dives in the mist.

“Come on,” Josh hisses.

Josh pushes him to hide behind the fridge; they glide over the large puddle of the red substance on the floor — bits of it get on Tyler’s sneakers, on his pant leg, and he almost falls into the red too.

“Is it blood or ketchup?”

He wonders for a second. Everything is a mess, and any reds scream BLOOD at him.

“Ketchup,” Josh points at the plastic bottle of Heinz. Tyler will never buy it ever again.

The zombies that have been following them are getting back to their routine — some of them continue sweeping the packs off the shelves. They let out a howl of disappointment because the security camera is too high, and they can’t reach for it. They keep throwing the cans at the ceiling.

It looks like a destroy-the-shopping-mall contest.

“We need to hive off,” Josh decides in the most inappropriate moment.

“What?” Tyler’s doubled over to get the air back into his lungs; Josh sympathetically pats his back.

“We need to confuse them,” Josh says, still patient. “You’re a pro at throwing the hatchets.”

“You’re a pro at spoiling my mood,” Tyler croaks out. The blade of the hatchet is all crimson-colored.

He doesn’t want to keep going without Josh. But Josh just winks at him, Josh scurries toward the end of the section, leaving Tyler standing behind the freezer while the zombies seem to be travelling away from the ruins.

“Please, don’t die!” Josh is an ephemeral shadow, but Tyler can still hear him. “I’ll never forgive myself!”

Tyler will never forgive him.

Tyler carefully peeks over the top of the stand to check the area for more whistlers — things like this one have become the simplest rules to survive. And it’s clear, they’re probably going to fiddle with more cameras or maybe they’re craving to get their weapons too.

“You can make it to the storage room through the furniture shop.”

Tyler’s heart spasms.

“Fuck,” he curses.

These technologies are the nails in his coffin lid. It’s so loud Tyler wishes zombies could turn the volume down at least. The next thing he’s preoccupied with is a message _‘well done buddy :)’_ in the ticker tape on the panel above the EXIT sign.

Tyler makes sure his middle finger is pointed directly at the camera.

And the words in the ticker tape say —

_love ya too <3_

Tyler feels like he’s just a part of the experiment, ruthlessly brainwashed and thrown into a different dimension. Tyler doesn’t stop thinking of it even when the sorrowful whistle sends chills in his bones; the sound is overwhelming, capturing Tyler into the dome with elastic walls. Tyler blindly dodges the knife thrown at him, he can swear it cuts some hair off the top of his head. Here’s another knife — the zombie takes it out of its chest, bloodied and covered in a greenish mucus, and tosses it, but Tyler ducks his head so the blade doesn’t puncture a hole in his Adam’s apple.

Tyler whips out a butterfly knife — the distance is too big for it to fly straight — they should’ve visited the kitchen section beforehand. The knife gouges out the zombie’s eye, but it’s just the only one victim out of the ten monsters blocking the hallway.

“Dammit,” Tyler blurts out. “Fuck this life,” Tyler continues, hightailing to a literal nowhere. He has so many profanities to spit out, but he forgets that he’s able to speak when he’s being hunted by zombies that are getting faster over the course of the pursuit.

And Tyler hates Josh for leaving him like this.

And Tyler regrets he told him that his ankle was fine.

But Tyler hobbles to the furniture shop — here are these comfortable king size beds, but here’s a dismembered corpse on the couch. Four others are sitting in the armchairs around the table as if they’re getting ready for the mad tea party, pink and green paper hats decorate their heads. A bout of vertigo turns Tyler’s brain upside down, blood running cold as he steadies himself against the side of a wardrobe not to swoon right there and then.

Ceramic plates on the table are full of guts.

When they were checking the cameras with Mark, the bodies weren’t there.

They’re disfigured, with the gashes in their throats and with their bowels lying beside them like tubes and snakes, and Tyler’s nose wrinkles at the pungent smell coming out of the wardrobe he’s standing beside. And he can see somebody’s boots peeking from underneath the bed. It’s like a twisted version of the dollhouse, pastel colors are violated by the dark, bloody ones.

Unable to turn away from the bodies, Tyler chokes on his slimy saliva and dry heaves, but his upset stomach can’t bring any vomit up; he hacks up the phlegm and spits mouthful after mouthful of it. He has no time for this.

Thin plastic wall doesn’t stop the beast, and it simply breaks through it, leaving a zombie-shaped hole in the panel.

And there’s no exit.

There’s no salvage for Tyler, because Josh has left him to die here; in a split second, zombies occupy the opposite door, their growling tickles Tyler’s back.

It’s just another trap.

“Get into the vent!”

Tyler throws his head back just to see a ventilation system almost above him.

Mark shouts again.

“Get into the fucking vent, do you hear me?!”

Tyler does hear him.

Tyler can actually get into it if he clambers up the wardrobe, but the only way to get there is use this red armchair where the dead dude sits. His hollow eyes are open, he’s seen his death —

A zombie throws a decorative vase, it breaks the glass table, and Tyler has never felt more alive. He tosses a hatchet, killing a whistler by splitting its brainpan, and it ignites the others’ rage.

They start to surround him, Tyler is lost in his panic and fright; the corpses and Mark are his only audience.

“Mark, I’m gonna fucking die!”

Tyler doesn’t care that Mark doesn’t hear him.

When they’re about to get him, he hops onto the armchair, accidentally stepping on the corpse’s palm and shaking his leg to get the blood off the sole of his shoe; zombies are getting smarter, but Tyler is fast, he gets onto the back of the armchair and crawls up to the top of the wardrobe, wiping the dust with his coverall.

He thinks of Josh.

He thinks that Josh makes him feel physically sick.

Tyler removes the grid from the entrance and throws it at the zombie below him; it’s not too long until they’ll figure out how to climb too. Fire shoots through Tyler’s veins, and his head is as empty as the balloon as he pulls himself up, wiggling like a worm and finally getting into the vent. It’s much darker than he expected; Tyler doesn’t even know if there are any forked ways or blocked parts, and it’s not like a videogame. If he dies, he dies for real; if he gets bitten — he’s gonna ask Josh to kill him.

Or, this vent is going to kill him.

The second Tyler gets inside he realizes he can’t function properly, his lungs hurt as his sporadic breaths tear them apart. And the zombies are going to sabotage his escape; Tyler hears them swarm below while he’s lying on his stomach and pressing his forehead to the crook of his elbow. The stench of rat droppings arouses his consciousness like the smelling salts.

“Come on,” Tyler moans. “Get your shit together.”

He thinks about all the dirty windows all over the building and is suddenly happy he’s not supposed to clean them when this shit is over. Tyler’s vision is doubled as he opens his eyes; Mark’s voice doesn’t encourage him anymore and Josh is nowhere to be found.

Maybe, Tyler is the last one standing.

Tyler hauls himself forward, the zippers on his uniform drag against the vent, screeching, and the tube feels transparent. And tight. It squeezes him, and Tyler tends to get claustrophobic when he has nothing else to be focused on.

“Come on,” he repeats, creeping and wheezing like an asthmatic.

He’s going on and on, occasionally looking down through the grey grids, and sometimes there are mindless zombies looking up at him too. Sometimes, there are the bodies. The more he crawls, the scarier the building gets, turning to a haunted house from the amusement park, and Tyler is about to pass out due to asphyxiation.

He’s above this chaos, but he’s got that chaos into his system.

He’s well-trained, he’s used to a hard work and heights, but this damn vent system is sucking his life out of him. The time is a pile of ice, Tyler’s brain is a jelly, but he just keeps moving automatically, on his knees and elbows, hitting his back on the surface above him when it’s time to round the corner.

He’s afraid he’s gonna meet a zombie here.

He wishes he could collaborate with Josh already.

Tyler has seen the dirt in every building, the rust and human’s hair in public bathrooms he’s used; and now he’s learned a thing about this shitty ventilation system in a large shopping mall. The first one — it’s full of crap. The second one — it creaks even though Tyler is not a heavy guy. And the third one — it’s nothing like those vent-trips in action movies.

Because it breaks.

It’s a free fall from the ceiling; Tyler yelps, scraping his fingers as he tries to hold himself up, because he’s plummeting, and he’s ready to hear the sound of his vertebrae cracking. Tyler gulps for breath, panic devours him; he lands onto a sweaty mountain of muscles, and it’s _moving_ , and Tyler’s body coordination fails as something that weights a ton smacks him in the head.

That’s where Tyler’s personal Apocalypse blooms up.

 

***

The rustling of the zipper being pulled down works for Tyler like an alarm clock. Chilly air brushes over his chest as a pair of calloused hands touches his wrists and then his ankles, rolling up his sleeves and yanking up his pant legs. Metallic taste coats Tyler’s tongue as it pokes in the shreds on the inside of his cheek, bitten badly and still caught between his teeth.

“Is it blood or ketchup?” somebody inquires.

Everything is still black.

“I dunno, man, he’s waking up,” another voice responds.

Tyler blinks, the faces looming above him emerge from darkness.

“What,” Tyler only says before the sensations attack him.

He thinks he can still see these cartoonish stars swirling above his busted head. He even tries to pass out again, but a gentle pat on his cheek makes him crack his eyelids open. And here’s Tyler’s _neighbor_ , that marine who killed a zombie the night before; he’s huge, he’s wearing a leather vest, and his biceps are the size of Tyler’s thighs. There’s the blood on his massive hands, and there’s no need to ask why Tyler feels like his brain has been thrown into a washing machine.

The next thing Tyler sees is a broken section of the ventilation tube on the floor.

Tyler whimpers groggily.

“Kid, I thought I killed you,” the marine informs him. There’s the rifle lying on the concrete, and Tyler puts two and two together though he’s not sure if he gets a right result.

He sniffles and the ringing reverberates through his brainpan.

“I’ve never… gotten hit in the h-head… before,” Tyler slurs and it drains him out.

He just wants to find out what forced that man to hit him _that hard_ in the first place. Tyler rolls his eyes skyward, observing the ceiling, the jagged hole in the vent; the lights swim and his stomach cramps. He’s most likely fell out into the storage room Mark was talking about; Tyler can just guess it by the concrete floor and by the lack of any glass and goods. And zombies.

“Can you get up?”

Tyler lazily turns his head to the noise just to finally notice _Josh;_ he’s crouching down beside Tyler, with the blood caked underneath his nose and in his beard, and with a _katana_ in his hands, shiny and covered with the bloody ornament as well. Here’s even a fingernail sticking to it. Josh’s uniform is ripped, revealing the tattoo on his arm.

And.

A _katana._

Mark hasn’t lied to them.

“How,” Tyler’s lips are dry.

“Don’t ask, dude, just don’t ask,” Josh sighs pointedly and lays the katana down onto the empty cardboard box.

Tyler clutches the sides of his head to seal it together and feels something wet leaking out of his left ear.

He sits up hastily, spitting out blood and probably mucous chunks peeling off a huge sore in his mouth. Tyler’s temple pulsates, his ear is sticky, and his palm leaves red prints on the concrete.

“Oh no,” Tyler retracts his hand in fright. “You broke my head.”

His brain is damaged, it’s gonna swell, and he’s gonna die convulsing and hallucinating, and —

“Kid, I’m sorry. You just fell on me, and I reacted a little too fast. I’m Michael, if you remember me,” the man introduces himself with a heavy sigh.

Tyler sticks his forefinger into his ear.

“You killed a zombie,” his words are still a little jumbled. “I saw it; you were in my backyard. You killed that woman, and I wanted to call the police, but then I fainted,” he props his elbows on his knees and covers his face.

He’s never gotten any sorts of a concussion before, so he doesn’t know how to act when the inside of his head feels like a large hot hematoma.

“Tyler,” Michael starts.

“My brain’s bleeding,” Tyler grunts. “It’s not ketchup, it’s the blood in my ear.”

He’s aware he’s whining too much; it’s probably because he’s getting hurt too much. Tyler needs to distract himself, to fight the urge to break down and cry, so he just lurches forward and hugs Josh. Tightly.

“Hey,” Josh is amazed, but he doesn’t recoil. “Here’s just a scratch above your ear. Your brain isn’t bleeding, dude,” he coos, he comforts, he protects.

Tyler lets out a shaky breath, his mind clears a little — maybe it’s just the placebo effect, but maybe it’s Josh’s rough hand stroking his hair.

Tyler’s coverall is still mostly unzipped.

“Why did you try to undress me?”

“Michael wanted to check you for zombies’ bites,” Josh responds. “Did you know some of them knew kung-fu? I’ve found out it an hour ago,” he gives a respectful glance to his katana. “When I got there, you already were unconscious and Michael was trying to wake you up.”

Michael got such good reflexes.

“How did you get here?” Tyler wriggles out of Josh’s embrace.

“Through the door,” Josh smirks. “Michael locked it, but I had the key, it’s fine. I know this building.”

“Cool,” Tyler rubs his face. “And how did _you_ get here?”

Michael looks guilty.

“I didn’t mean to knock you out, kid, I swear,” he repeats.

“It doesn’t help me with that headache, but okay,” Tyler zips his uniform back up.

Maybe this concussion has made him a better person.

And Michael has his own point of view.

“You know, it all started last evening, at around 7pm,” Michael says, backing his shoulders with a crack. “I was at the gas station when I heard the whistling, but then, you know, those monsters, they — they just ate the dude behind the counter alive, _alive_ , you know?”

Tyler knows.

Josh nods silently.

“And I had to go inside and smash their heads with the counter machine, because there weren’t any other weapons; luckily, no other customers too. Then I got home, and that’s where I saw another one — it was a man staring me down, and he was like, putrefying, and his skin was rotten, so I took the gun and killed him,” he points at the holster on his belt. “Then I took a rifle, but I don’t have many bullets left,” he nods at the backpack. “And then I saw that zombie-woman near your house,” he pauses, because Tyler is aware of what happened next. “More news came out this afternoon, you know, it was on the radio. But they didn’t say anything about zombies, they were just talking about the shopping mall so I grabbed my guns and came here,” Michael scrubs his bloodied palms. “Oh, man. I gave Josh some water when we met, and, do you want some water?”

The words claw their way out of Tyler’s throat as he speaks.

“Yes, please.”

Tyler’s head still hurts, his cheek stings and feels bigger than it should be, but the water from the plastic bottle washes the taste away. He then thinks about peeing in a similar bottle and blushes. But it seems that Josh made friends with Tyler’s crazy neighbor while Tyler was out cold.

Tyler passes the bottle back to Michael and looks at the door.

“We’re going to fight back,” Michael says solemnly. “Our President doesn’t care about us, or about our Army, so we’re gonna form our own Army,” he delves in his backpack, fishing out a pistol. “It’s my Colt M45A1 — stainless steel, 45-caliber magazine, ambidextrous safety lock, seven bullets. Gonna blow the zombie’s mind,” Michael’s eyes gleam with anticipation. “I’m gonna show you how to use this thing, kids.”

Tyler has no idea what to do with the weapon that has somehow _chosen_ him.

“It’s time to make some holes in their heads,” Josh says, concerned.

Michael snaps his fingers.

“That’s right, buddy.” 

Tyler’s right eye twitches again, but maybe, Josh’s fortitude is as contagious as a zombie-virus.

 

***

They leave a storage room thinking up the Plan with a capital P — find Mark and get the hell out of the shopping mall; it’s gonna be a lot easier since they got a certified soldier in their small team. Tyler’s inner voice is sarcastic. Tyler is still bothered by Michael’s attitude, so he calls Josh out for a conversation while they stroll down the trashed aisle.  

“Why didn’t you stop him when he was undressing me?”

“I was just curious,” Josh shrugs.

“I hate you.”

Tyler says it as he means it. Josh doesn’t seem to be hurt by that.

Michael is only a few feet in front of them, checking the locations they’re passing; Josh remains silent, aiming his katana for the shadows like the most underrated character from the _Kill Bill_ movie. Green and orange shades peek through the tear in his sleeve, thick veins are bulged up on both sides of his head; his black curly mohawk makes him look like a bird. A very bellicose bird.

Tyler clutches the pistol in his sweaty palm. After the short guide, he thinks he’s gonna be able to fire it.

“Josh,” Tyler pokes his shoulder slightly.

Josh jumps up, astonished.

“Wha— what?”

Tyler looks at Michael’s back, wondering if he’s overhearing them. And Tyler blurts out —

“If we’ll ever get out of here, fuck me.”

He expects to get a _fuck off,_ but Josh is unpredictable.

“Gladly,” Josh responds with a soft chuckle.

Tyler hasn’t had anything resembling relationships for ages — he has no idea how to talk to people.

“They’re here!”

But instead, Tyler knows pretty well how to talk to zombies; when Michael shouts _fire_ , Tyler shoots the gun before he thinks — the zombie’s head explodes with red confetti, sprinkling the glass surface behind it. Tyler aims for another whistler, but he just loses a bullet; the kickback hurts his elbow, but the next shot is much better.

Shooting zombies in the shopping mall is not something Tyler has signed up for.

“Nice one, kid!” Michael growls, the rifle in his arms jerks as it spews out bullets.

Josh is the one who whistles back at them to make the monsters come closer, just to chop off their heads while Tyler aims for them. The fortune is on their side — they survive this attack, wading through the barricades. Here’s a carcass made of adrenaline in Tyler’s veins — it’s the only thing that doesn’t let him pass out. They’re winning the battle, but the end of the war drowns in the haze and whistle, and Josh gets a really bad knock against the wall as the zombies surround him.

“I’m coming!” Michael yells.

Tyler is coming too.

Tyler has never seen somebody re-loading the rifle this fast — Michael is a very qualified warrior. Michael yanks Josh up by his collar, shaking him awake; even though he’s semi-conscious, Josh doesn’t lose his weapon and bolts down the section as the new flocks of zombies appear from the holes they’ve been hiding in.

“What a daredevil,” Tyler is petrified, seeing Josh slash the zombie’s torso. Without second thought, he turns and sends the bullet through the ear of the zombie right next to him.

Michael applauses.

“Where did you learn this thing?” he points at Tyler with his rifle.

“My fear leads me,” Tyler responds.

Tyler feels pathetic.

But he’s got potential.

They clean the location; the time is a thing that doesn’t matter anymore, and here’s something comforting in Josh’s smile as they prevail over their common enemy. Tyler even wants to compliment Josh for such good fighting, but the speakers above them get back to life again.

“One-two, one-two-three, I hope you can hear me guys,” a familiar voice fills the room.

“Thank God,” Josh throws his clenched fist up.

“It’s Mark,” Tyler tells to Michael. Michael places his forefinger over his lips.

The sound breaks through the wave of sizzling.

“I can’t see you through the cameras anymore, but I’m trying to fix it right now; maybe I’ll go and check the switchers. I think they just want us to be unable to communicate. Stay alive, guys, stay alive,” he sighs, and it’s the end of his message.

Josh groans and pulls at his hair.

“We need to get him,” Tyler says. Even with the spare magazines, they don’t have enough bullets to hold the resistance.

And they have miles of the corridors and sections with the snares being set inside. Mentally, Tyler’s planning how to get back to Mark’s room — it will definitely break the right trajectory, but if the zombies have somehow managed to turn off all the cameras, it means that they’re gonna figure out how to break the locks pretty soon.

“I don’t even know if there are any staircases that haven’t been captured,” Josh wipes the side of the sword with the cuff of his sleeve. “It’s gonna be a pain in the ass, but we need to try.”

Josh is a good partner. Maybe, Tyler was born under a lucky star.

“So let’s make our way through these jungles,” Michael checks his trusty rifle again. “Just let’s do it quick.”

It’s so metaphorical — they’re fighting for the freedom, and zombies’ and their own blood is gonna be their war paint. Tyler probably turns pale when he imagines it, but Josh’s concerned glance makes him pull his mask back on.

Because Tyler wants to be a good partner too.

“Let’s do it quick,” Josh repeats.

There’s no soul in the dynamics.

Their way back to Mark is harder than their way to the storage room; getting back to the beginning is even worse than gathering the dust in the vent system, even though it was probably the dirtiest part of the mall. The ventilation felt like this building’s rectum.

It’s a good thing that they don’t have to use it again.

When Michael cracks the zombie’s skull with the butt of his rifle, Tyler feels the bile flowing up his esophagus, because something like that could’ve happened to him — he calls himself a loser frequently. He doesn’t look at the bloody parts, body parts in the aisle as they go through the kitchen section.

Josh opens the microwave and there’s a human’s head inside.

“Let’s forget about it,” Josh mumbles and carefully closes it.

Tyler notices something red in the oven with the bloody fingerprints smeared on it. He’s half deaf due to all the shooting, the whistle is dulled to a minimum volume, and it confuses him even more — he barely manages to stab a zombie standing next to him. Tyler is being pushed around, slamming his side on the kitchen counter and hopping over it to run forward, and he shoots, and his task is just to stay alive to help his teammates.

From his position behind the countertop, he can see Josh fighting with two zombies at a time, he can hear Michael swearing and shooting, and Tyler throws a huge kitchen knife when a zombie wants to get him again. Some of them are wearing white laboratory coats, ripped and covered with the large smudges of blood.

“What the heck,” Tyler scowls. “Hey!” he shouts at Josh so he can react and kill another monster.

They battle for the way out; they eventually change the location because this shopping mall is a freaking scary maze with the screamers, with their ugly faces. They fight with everything they can find when Michael says they have to save the bullets, and Tyler feels guilty for all the bullets he’s managed to lose.

Mark doesn’t talk to them anymore.

When the corridor is free of the living dead, they speed up despite the fatigue.

In a souvenir section, Tyler uses the katana for the first time, cutting off a zombie’s hand and watching it let out a faint rill of blood, the sleeve of the ex-man’s plaid shirt is empty. Tyler slips again, because the floor gets thousand times slipperier when you’re getting chased. He’s forced to switch the weapon — he doesn’t actually know what to do with the katana, he wants to throw it like a knife but it doesn’t fly correctly, just cropping few fingers off the zombie’s hand.

Knives are much better.

The shooting pierces the shop, Michael screams as he appears from behind the stand with the sprinkles of blood on his face and chest.

“It was the last bullet,” he reports.

Josh breathes heavily.

The war doesn’t let them call a truce.

Tyler shoots his last bullet when a zombie tackles Josh to the floor.

“Are you okay?” Tyler’s voice cracks when he gazes at Josh’s cheekbone, grazed and blackened from the heavy blow against the tiles.

“Yeah.”

Josh thanks him with a single nod before sticking the katana into the zombie’s stomach, turning it to an unzipped bag with the red addle contents spilled out of it. Tyler’s insides keep making somersaults but it’s not something he wants to be focused on.

“Keep going, kids!”

Life gets a bit better when Michael gets a chainsaw.

Here’s a constant buzzing, it hurts Tyler’s brain, and the lights blink sneeringly. When they make it to the music store, Tyler breaks his first guitar — it’s a Fender Electric XII, and Tyler feels like a vandal he is.

But the zombie doesn’t think so when the Fender hits it in the head.

Well, it doesn’t think overall.

The guitar neck is broken, the pick-ups and a scratchplate are mottled with leftover brains, and it doesn’t feel so punk-rock. Twelve strings are red, and Tyler hurls the halves of a Fender at the zombie that watches him _interestedly_.

The chainsaw is just a death itself, a death for the dead, and somebody’s hand tries to grab Tyler by his uniform, but Michael doesn’t miss a bit, letting the sharp chain do its job. Josh uses the crash cymbal like a shield while he gets attacked repeatedly, but it’s not until he tosses a kick drum at the nearest whistler; this throw deserves a medal — the rim hits the zombie’s head and makes it stumble while Michael minces it to scraps with the chainsaw.

“I’ve always wanted to be a drummer,” Josh exclaims, patting the hi-hat lovingly.

The buzzing is way too loud.

They don’t hear the whistling.

They make their way through the labyrinth full of monsters and stop by Mark’s office; using his elbow, Tyler breaks the glass box on the wall and takes a red hatchet — he’s sure he will not hesitate to test it.

“Dude, we came to save you,” Josh exhales wearily, his hand on the doorknob.

The door opens instantly, and the look on Mark’s face probably matches his thoughts. Tyler quickly looks around to appraise their brand new style — dirty clothes, angry and beaten faces; they’re exhausted but armed with the improvised weapons and unbreakable confidence.

“So,” Tyler hums.

Mark lets them in, Tyler staggers to the office chair and falls into it, unable to move. Mark locks the door, not even asking where they managed to meet a muscular and masculine guy with the rifle on his shoulder and with the chainsaw in his hands.

It’s an awkward situation.

“I’m Mark,” Mark says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Michael,” Michael nods. “I’m Tyler’s neighbor,” he adds for some reason.

“That’s true,” Tyler confirms.

Josh slides down the wall with a groan, holding the katana between his knees.

“It’s a sign for me to quit this shitty job,” he informs, closing his eyes.

“Don’t wanna clean up the mess?” Tyler quips.

Josh tiredly flips him off.

“You broke the window you were supposed to clean,” he retorts. “You’ll get penalized for it.”

Tyler huffs in response. Josh is not that razor-tongued, but Tyler has no words to fend off his sarcasm.

“Now kiss,” Mark rolls his eyes.

Josh makes a gagging noise. Freddy Mercury looks at him accusingly from the wall, and Tyler breaks out in a cold sweat.

“Come on, guys, I saw you, well, in the locker room,” Mark says sheepishly. “It was intimate as fuck.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Tyler pouts.

He wishes he could erase Mark’s memories.

“Any other news?” Michael cocks his eyebrow, obviously bored.

Mark sits down on the edge of the table.

“I’ve been listening to the radio,” he winces. “I think they started giving explanations.”

Michael has mentioned the radio-news before.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Josh perks up. 

Mark glares daggers at him.

“Because you were too busy bitching about your relationship?”

Josh rubs the bridge of his nose with his _middle_ finger. Tyler smirks and then glances at the already familiar black sections on the screen — the show is over.

“It’s not working properly,” Mark points at the radio on the shelf. “Too much white noise,” he continues. “But let’s try again while you guys are resting.”

They’re not _resting_.

For Tyler, it’s getting harder to get his vision back when he blinks, giddiness settles in his skull, occasionally taunting his brain. He’s aware that some of the head injuries are just time bombs.

And Josh doesn’t care about it.

“It’s weird, but I’m so hungry I feel sick,” Josh says guiltily.

“And I just feel sick,” Tyler mutters, resting his forearm over his eyes.

And Josh pretends he cares.

“Can you keep going?”

“Do I have any other option?”

Tyler’s way too edgy when he’s frazzled.

“Dude, I’m just worried about you, okay?”

Josh sounds irritated for the first time.

Tyler gives him a half-shrug.

“Whatever.”

When he’s on the verge of passing out for the millionth time, he hears the certain noises coming from the radio — a shitty quality of the translation doesn’t drown out the meaning of the words that fight their way through the cracking.

_“…an experiment gone wrong. After the resurrection of the dead brain cells, a human being has turned to a blood-thirsty beast and attacked the scientists; due to changes in its blood composition, the virus is spreading too fast, so try to avoid any contacts with the infected creatures. We got a message containing the information that the most of the beasts have been located in the shopping mall in the center of the city. The government is taking the lead, the situation is controlled by finding the solution — it’s a toxic gas that will pull the zombies into the slumber and kill their brain. The whole living area is going to get evacuated from the epicenter of the infestation; a troop of the Special Forces is on their way to the shopping mall, armed with the cylinders filled with gas.”_

Tyler jolts awake.

“That’s why some of them were dressed in white coats,” he exclaims. “They were the scientists.”

That explains why they’re pretty smart.

“A toxic gas,” Mark shudders. “We need to evacuate ourselves.”

The radio wheezes, hacking up a few more warnings before trailing off.

“Do you think we have time?” Tyler raises his head, looking at Josh.

Josh gnaws at his split bottom lip.

“Well,” he slaps his thighs. “They’ve already blocked automatic doors, they ruined the cameras, they occupied all the back doors, so we can’t get there, because we don’t have bullets, and the chainsaw is not that great. Sorry, Michael,” Josh sighs. “Plus, we need to disappear as fast as possible not to get poisoned; I think I know the shortest way — it’s an underground parking lot, if we’re lucky enough we’ll get a car,” Josh sounds less and less passionate as he speaks.

“What’s the catch, man?” Tyler interrupts him.

“We’re gonna have to go through the… huge _freezer_ , you know, for the meat store, they’re preparing it there; there’s another storage room, but you need a pass code to get inside,” he hugs his knees as if Tyler is about to kick him. “And there’s one more way to the parking lot. Like, that part where they stop the trucks with fresh meat. I’m mopping the floor there, so I know the pass code,” he shifts on the floor uncomfortably.

Tyler’s vision snaps in and out.

“And it’s the only way?”

Josh’s fingers are wrapped firmly over the handle of the katana.

“Yes,” he says calmly. “You can try to get out of the front door if you want.”

Tyler doesn’t want to try.

Michael seems to be pondering about Josh’s plan.

“We’re gonna get killed along with the zombies if we stay here,” Mark points out. “I’d prefer to leave this mall already.”

“Yeah,” Michael nods as he stands up, weighing the chainsaw in his hands. “Who’s ready for the next level?”

None of them is ready, but they nod synchronically.

 

***

They make it to the freezing room without any problems; well, a zombie or two can’t be considered as a _problem_ in this instance. They bolt down the stairs with their bloodied weapons and racing hearts, and the story spirals back to the worst-case-scenario phase.

“Oh no,” Josh whispers.

The door is open, the stench of a fresh meat and copper makes Tyler retch and bring his palm to his mouth. The doorframe is all scraped, this place is not a safe haven anymore — but Josh comes in first. Maybe, because it was his idea. Tyler falters but takes a step, followed by Michael and Mark, and he stumbles over a human’s leg, the red coverall is too bright, similar to Josh’s, but the dead guy isn’t similar to Josh — he’s much taller and he has long hair, his baseball cap is as red-hued as the floor next to his head.

Josh’s face turns green as he identifies the body.

“Jesse was an asshole, but he didn’t deserve this,” Josh swallows hard. “No one deserves this.”

Tyler doesn’t know if Jesse was Josh’s friend, but he’s a corpse anyway, and they’re about to get attacked by both zombies and Special Forces. The death doesn’t seem so appealing anymore.

“Let’s go,” Tyler says. “I’m sorry.”

Josh nods.

“He probably was mopping the floor, but they got him, dammit, Jesse,” Josh roars.

The fridges are purring like big hungry cats. Or like tigers.

The wooden handle of the hatchet feels slippery and wet, and Tyler’s head doesn’t stop spinning as they enter another room where the temperature drops dramatically. A harsh yelp doesn’t come out of Tyler’s parched throat as he sees what he sees.

“Holy shit,” Mark takes a step backwards.

“Stay,” Michael orders.

Mark freezes.

Here are the bodies.

Here’s the end of the evacuation Tyler has missed — and he can’t tell if he’s grateful now. He wants to cry, honestly, he can barely hold the hatchet with his shaking hands as Michael grips at his shoulder and manhandles him away from the predator’s _food reserve;_  Tyler chokes back his tears. Here are the stainless steel meat-hooks, here are dozens of the ice-covered victims — security guards, cashiers and customers — all of them are half naked and half eaten, with their feet like stumps and bitten fingers. It’s like a huge meat grinder.

A mass murder.

Not all the bodies are _adults_.

Mark covers his nose and mouth with the collar of his hoodie as he takes the cleaver in his hand; the tip of Josh’s katana drags against the floor, screeches, looking like something from Tyler’s past life.

Tyler’s _current_ life is full of deaths.

“We need to go,” Michael says, the fog puffs out of his mouth.

Michael is right. These people don’t need any help anymore, and —

It’s so inevitable — the whistling is the reminder, but their attackers don’t flaunt their creativity, they’re using the same scheme. Here are at least ten zombies limping towards them, with their peeled off flesh and with the bumps of their bones sticking out.

With their yellow and grey teeth.

Mark throws the cleaver with a shriek; he tries to bounce away but promptly gets shoved to the cutting table, losing the only weapon he had. Michael flings to him with his chainsaw buzzing, the chunks of meat and skin form a bloody cloud in the air. They’re trashing the cool room, getting lost in between the bodies and the walking zombies; Tyler is sure his breaths out him while he stands behind the obese man hanging from the ceiling. A half of the man’s face is just a mush, masticated by the monster’s jaws; this is beyond disgusting, Tyler can’t even believe it. He’s just waiting for another whistler to get closer to him.

But that’s when Josh gets into the circle.

They pounce on him, he screams in pain; there are at least five whistlers hovering over Josh like vultures — they have already learned how to take up arms. The darts and shanks for fishing harpoons gleam in the dim lights, and Josh kicks the zombie’s hand, attempting to reach for the katana on the floor.

The zombie Josh is fighting against is dressed in a filthy red coverall.

“Josh! No!”

It’d sound comical if it wasn’t about Tyler’s friend dying from the paws of the living dead. His long hair covers a half of his face; the bone squelches sickly as Tyler’s hatchet cleaves the base of the whistler’s neck. It’s enough for _Jesse_ to fall on top of Josh. But here’s another one — nameless — and Tyler is a pure anger, he whips around and demolishes the top of its head, letting the rancid brain leak out of the broken brainpan.

“Josh?”

Tyler looks down.

Josh’s blood wets the fabric of his red uniform and the spot underneath him; he clenches the wound, but his other hand is on the handle of the katana already; and he sticks it into the chest of the zombie in the white coat while Tyler dissects its head.

But Jesse is the one that still holds the dart; it’s the one who hurt _Josh_ , and what if he’s infected —

And Tyler hits, and hits, and hits the dead janitor with a hatchet as if he’s just a sack, but the sack breaks, gushing out with blood and guts, and it’s probably still moving. _Jesse has always been an asshole_. Tyler kills him for the second time, Tyler screws his eyes shut as the blood obstructs his vision, and Michael’s chainsaw is still roaring like a crazy animal.

“The way is clear!” Michael screams, and Tyler fights his stupor.

Because here’s Josh who now needs to be stirred down the hallway, and Tyler gives a quick nod to Mark who’s cradling his hand to his chest, his face is all scrunched up into a grimace of pain. Michael is just a battering ram with the chainsaw whirring in his hands, but here’s a deep scratch on his busted temple, and Tyler has no idea how he’s supposed to drag him too if he’s going to pass out.

“Round the c-corner,” Josh commands as they trudge down the corridor. He’s shorter than Tyler, Tyler’s arm is wrapped around Josh’s waist.

Tyler doesn’t even look at the zombie he kills on their way to the parking lot. Maybe it is an old guy or a middle-aged lady. Tyler hisses slightly as he overstrains his leg again and again; it responds with a bout of pain, and Tyler is ashamed of his pain tolerance level.

But the freedom is just outside the door.

But the freedom is chained with death.

“Do you feel this smell?” Mark asks, sniffing the air. “Dammit.”

“Dammit,” Josh concurs.

It’s something bittersweet wafting through the hallway; the re-constructed air makes Tyler want to close his eyes, drop the hatchet and lie down, but he has to keep on walking so he perseveres.

“They’ve started the operation,” Michael bellows like a madman. “We’re late.”

They’re late, and the oxygen in Tyler’s lungs slowly gets replaced with the heavy toxic gas that fills him up, that lulls him to a permanent sleep. Josh covers the lower half of his face with his collar, and Tyler does the same, but a thin layer of cloth doesn’t save him.

He begs himself to not give up.

The door to the underground parking lot is wide open, but here’s the yellow haze clouding and curling all over the perimeter; Tyler’s eyes sting, and Josh leaves the bloody footprints on the floor as the blood flows down his pant leg.

“Hold on,” Tyler gasps, more gas gets into his system; Mark coughs behind him.

Their shoes stomp against the concrete floor, and there’s a piece of a parallel Universe — there are the outlines of the cars shrouded in the mist. Some of them are crashed, they miss the windshields and the side windows, but here’s a black jeep that seems to be intact. Tyler prefers not to think about what happened to a former owner of the vehicle.

It’s so welcoming it gives Tyler energy to keep hauling Josh towards it.

The doors are unlocked.

“Get inside, move, move,” Michael helps Tyler catch Josh under the armpits and throw him into the backseat. Josh opens his mouth in a silent cry, and Tyler actually wants to comfort him. “I’m the only one who can drive,” Michael states as he gets into the driver’s seat and Mark occupies a seat next to him.

Michael’s backpack and their weapons find their home in the jeep, too, Tyler is afraid to lose his leg if the chainsaw gets mad for some reason. Tyler’s sitting beside Josh; the air is permeated with the gas, every drop of it makes Tyler more and more high — not in a good way. Josh inhales sharply; the blood keeps spurting out of his thigh, Tyler’s fingers are all sticky as he tries to staunch the bleeding.

“You’re breathing too much,” Tyler says.

Josh heaves out a faint laughter.

“I’m gonna stop doing that pretty soon, I guess.”

Tyler doesn’t want him to get the poison into his body.

Michael doesn’t even manage to comprehend how to start the engine without keys; the sound of the alarm sneaks through the fog, through the venomous air. Tyler’s eyelids are all itchy when he catches a glimpse of the white truck and people in hazmat suits and gas masks that make them look like aliens. Their voices are distorted too.

“Hands up! Get out of the car!”

Josh closes his eyes, and Michael hits the steering wheel in agony. Mark’s head rests on the side window, and Tyler can’t tell if he’s still conscious.

“We’re not infected,” Michael rasps out, blocking out the poison with his palm.

Tyler looks out of the window and sees these silvery cylinders full of their death. But instead, somebody rips the door open and presses a big plastic mask to Tyler’s mouth, then to Josh’s; the aliens begin to speak in codes while Tyler breaks into a coughing fit, he can’t stop until he tastes blood.

He wishes the bustle could stop already.

 

***

They’re lounging in the back of the ambulance car, the doors are like open gates, and Tyler can see the sun. They’ve had a night shift in the shopping mall as the zombie-killers — Tyler will never be the old Tyler.

The town is mostly ruined, but the Apocalypse has mostly stopped. They weren’t the only ones who were fighting back; Tyler is somewhat proud although he’s terrified of a possible PTSD and all the therapists he’s supposed to get help from.

Tyler peeks out again, seeing the cars lying upside-down with their wheels still spinning, there are the remains of the burning wood all over the street. The center of the city looks like it’s been afflicted by the bunch of tornados. The radio says, it’s been 48 hours since the virus has been first registered, they say that over 1500 citizens have been affected, but Special Forces will not let the infection spread around.

It’s a huge tragedy.

Tyler’s family survived; he finds his half dead phone where he left it in his car, the windows broken and the tires stolen, but it’s not the worst. He reads his parents and siblings’ messages and replies with a _‘yes, I’m fine’_ because sweet lie is so tempting. Josh says that his family is fine too. Josh is right next to Tyler, in only his black briefs and socks and with the thick bandages wrapped tightly around his right upper thigh, the blood is like the red glue on the wound. Josh’s shoulders are covered with the ugly blanket, and he’s shaking. Tyler isn’t sure if Josh understands him, but Tyler needs a distraction when the nightmare seems to be over, but the city is about to drown in consequences. It’s just a few hours before the Global Disinfection starts. 

Tyler’s still fiddling with his phone when he finds out that the internet is working again.

“I need to send my poetry to the publishing office,” he tells to Josh.

It’s stupid, but he has to.

“My Mom says I’ve got potential,” Tyler whispers, leaning closer to Josh’s ear. Maybe the oxygen mask made him this gibberish.

Josh looks at him intently.

And he doesn’t give a shit about Tyler’s poetry.

“You’ve got nice eyelashes, dude,” he suddenly utters.

“My Mom has told me that too, thanks,” Tyler nods.

Tyler’s social skills suck.

Josh snorts.

“Don’t talk about your Mom when I’m trying to flirt.”

Tyler presses the icepack to the side of his head, wishing it could deep-freeze the reeling thoughts in his brain. It doesn’t work. Josh has a nice beard.

Mark and Michael are talking to the police, Michael has a butterfly bandage on his head, and Mark’s right hand is hidden in the cast. The photographer takes a picture of them — they’re local legends now, they’re about to get interviewed and be on TV later.

They’re the team of the Shopping Mall Survivors.

Tyler glances down at his phone — it’s at 1% after all the manipulations and messages. Tyler still has that unsent email saved in his drafts, and here’s the line swimming in his head — something about zombies, but he doesn’t know how to rhyme it.

“Hey,” Josh’s touch makes Tyler shrink. “You can do it if it’s your vocation.”

Tyler still remembers what he said in the shopping mall — _fuck me_ , and he doesn’t regret that. Josh has a nice beard that tickles Tyler’s mouth when he kisses Josh’s cheek while they’re not in the middle of the commotion. He eventually finds out that Josh’s lips are soft and sourish, but it’s fine. It’s a short and awkward moment, and Tyler is eager to unzip his coverall, but he slaps himself mentally for these fantasies. 

And Josh probably slaps himself too, throwing the blanket over his lap.

“Later,” he blurts out.

“Later,” Tyler nods.

The internet is working again, but Tyler’s personal Apocalypse isn’t even nearing to the end — Josh crawls away, and here’s a blonde woman with the microphone going in their direction. Tyler feels uneasy, like it’s him who’s sitting here half-naked.

He wonders if she’s seen them kiss.

“Do it,” Josh says while they still have time.

The woman from the TV can teleport and Tyler breathes into the mic.

“Can I ask you some questions—”

Tyler is a local legend.

He can’t perform a speech and turns away; the journalists begin to attack Josh instead, but Tyler is going to come to his rescue once he finishes the task.

“So, you’ve been in the epicenter of the infestation, how can you comment it—”

Josh doesn’t comment it.

Tyler finds the draft with his poetry he couldn’t email earlier and presses _send_.

It’s his personal aim-for-the-head metaphor.

**Author's Note:**

> bless [ this post](http://i-seeaspaceshipinthe-sky.tumblr.com/post/164029405626/quietdun-we-dont-talk-about-this-photoshoot)
> 
> i've been wanting to write a thing about zombies FOR AGES so:
> 
> @seenarain thank you for helping me with plotting and with piecing it together :)  
> and thank you for your amazing [ art](http://seenarain.tumblr.com/post/165322991302/fren-this-gif-is-for-u-and-your-zombie-kitten-d) <3
> 
> @PantaloonWarrior thank you for listening to my whining (i hope you've found /your/ phrase)!!  
> \---  
> Zebrahead - Survivor (Destiny’s Child cover)


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